A Rogue Kiss
by Azora1
Summary: Rogue's not growing up the way she wanted... and she's a little angry about it. Short little stand alone ficlet.


Title:  A Rogue Kiss  

Author:  Azora

Setting: Movieverse, a few years after the movie.

Disclaimer:  Insert standard disclaimer here.  They're not mine.

Summary:  Rogue's not growing up the way she wanted… and she's a little angry about it.  A short little ficlet with not much plot.

Warnings:  There aren't any.  It's just the ramblings of a young adult. 

Feedback:  is intensely desired.  Good, bad, constructive especially.  Please.  With cherries on top.

This whole control thing is not working.  Jean hasn't put a stop to it, but I know she's as frustrated as I am.  We've been working on it for weeks and I have made no progress.  Nothing.  Jean won't say anything, god bless her.  Admitting it to yourself and hearing it out loud are two different things.

When I reached the end of the first week, I cried.  Not just sniffle sniffle crying.  I cranked my stereo and bawled into my pillow for an hour.  Big gut wrenching sobs.  I'm sure some people knew what was going on.  Christ, I live in a house with a few telepaths and a super-sensory Wolverine.  But no one knocked on my door.  That's the great thing about living with your closest friends.  They know when to keep their mouths shut.

Well, most of them anyway.

"Hey, how're things coming with Jean?  Ready for the gloves to come off yet?"  Bobby Drake is sweet, a great guy to fight along side, but he can be so dense sometimes.  I think my look that morning could have turned _him_ to ice.  One look at my face and he went to sit at the other end of the teacher's table.

Ororo started to open her mouth and I held up a hand.  A gloved hand.  "Don't.  Just drop it."

Leave it to Logan to change the subject quickly.  He had a good way of smoothing things over.  "How's John doing?" he asked Jean.  John was nursing a bullet wound in the shoulder.  We'd had a run in with a human supremacy group a few days before, and John had taken a round.  He was lucky, though.  He'd used his power to explode the bullet that was aiming for his heart, but while concentrating on that one, he'd been hit by the other.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and around here, we are not lacking in unbelievable phenomenon.  The bullet just exploded like a firecracker six feet from his chest.

It wasn't the first time recently we've had injuries.  When it's not the human fundamentalists, its Mystique and her terrorists.  And as ridiculous as it may seem, they just go hand in hand.  Brotherhood attacks are widely broadcast on television, no matter how small, and the destruction the Brotherhood causes seems to justify all the hate.  I can see the fundies jumping off the sofa, a hard-on in their pants, screaming, "See?  See?  They're evil, those muties!  Kill 'em all!"  And we get to play double duty:  thwarting the Brotherhood and watching out for the Friends of Humanity, too.

We.  It was so much easier when it was 'them', and all I had to worry about was schoolwork and when Logan would come home.  Then school was over and the X-Men needed new members.  So now there's me, Bobby, St. John, Kitty, and Jubilee.  After graduation, we were the ones asked to stay on as X-Men.  I had honestly been a little shocked.  At the time, my self-defense had been mediocre.  Logan had said I had potential, but he wouldn't have told me if I sucked.  Plus, my power was useless unless I felt like going insane.  

But my fighting did improve, at least past the point of novice, and Jean helped me with the personalities I absorbed.  She taught me to kind of push them back in my mind so they were really quiet.  It was freaking great, silence in my head for the first time in years.

Jean's help gave me false hope.  If I could control the voices, couldn't I control my power?  Turn it off and on at will?  We didn't work on it for a long time.  First she got pregnant, then her mother died.  She spent a lot of time away from the students, and when she was around, I didn't want to bother her.  The old Rogue was more patient and kind.  This new Rogue, well into her fourth week of useless control training, is a little bitter and, well, as Logan said recently, bitchy.

I can't help it.  I grew up, and I don't mean mentally.  I am a twenty two year old virgin, and it doesn't look like that is going to change anytime soon.  Oh, sure, I could be creative.  Silk scarves and condoms? Yeah, but one slip and I've got an unconscious guy and another voice in my head.  And I put a silk scarf in my mouth once.  It made me gag.  It's bullshit.  I want naked, body on body, sweaty sex.  And what about children?  I can just forget about having kids.  Okay, not like I want to.  Other people's kids are fine, but I don't think I could handle the responsibility of molding someone else's life.  But I still would have liked the choice.  Instead, I get to sit here with opera gloves up to my armpits and wonder why life dealt me such a shitty hand.

No wonder people here are looking at me so differently.  Who have I become and when did I cease to be the nice quiet new girl?  I brooded for a while after Logan left the first time, but I came out of that the same.  I studied and did well in class, despite having missed a year of school.  I even considered college, for a short time.  But being away from my own kind didn't appeal to me that much.  I don't like the stares, and I can't ignore them like some of the others.  They get to me.  So I stayed here.  Part of the team, beginners' self-defense trainer, but not much else.

I think I changed after Bobby and I stopped playing at being a couple.  I was, well, bitter.  Sexually frustrated, maybe.  Plus it wasn't going anywhere.  I'd watched him change from a boy to a man in front of my eyes, and we could never have been more than flirting teenagers.  He's a much better friend, anyway.  He knows how to make me laugh.  And though he doesn't act like it, he can be a great listener.  

Then Logan came back.  Logan left a girl, and came back two years later to a woman, and he had no clue how to deal with that.  The little girl to protect wasn't there anymore, and he had no idea what to make of a grown-up Rogue.  I knew he'd be there to watch my back, just like the other members of the team, but it took him a little while to realize I didn't want him standing over me, claws out, ready to protect.  I wanted to prove myself.  He took over as trainer for our team, not really a leader as much as a mentor, and we got to know each other again.  He's a better friend, too.  He doesn't hold back; he always tells me what he thinks. 

But now, everyone is leaving me alone.  Since this bullshit control thing started, I've been a little antagonistic.  Little, ha; maybe a lot.  I think they thought I was going through a stage.

That was, until yesterday.

I think the religious freaks might be worse that the fundies.  At least the supremacist groups have their own agenda.  The religious nuts think they're living out the wishes of a supreme being.  Yup, someone you can't see says killing people because they look different is the right thing to do.  One person saying that ends up in an institution; a whole group, and it's doctrine.

So this church has a baby, four days old, born with fur and a tail, and the priest is going to kill the child in front of the congregation.  The professor found out through who knows how, and sent all of us to save the child.

Cyclops had gone for the startle effect.  Religious types are easily scared by the unknown, so when dealing with religion, sometimes scaring them is the best way to clear them out.  Only the real freaky, half insane ones will stay.  So Storm did what she does best and started up a major thunderstorm, then Cyke shot a hole through the church.  Mission accomplished.  Screaming, freaking out worshippers flooded out of the church.  I hope they thought their God was going to smite them.  And not only did it clear out the meek, it cleared out _everyone_.  The only person left was the preacher, holding the wailing baby and shaking.  Kitty had walked right up to him and taken the baby out of his arms.  

He'd lost some of his fear as she walked away.  He had started to follow her, screaming, "That child is an abomination of God!  _You_ are an abomination of God!  The Lord will find you and strike you down!"  He had gone to lay a hand on Kitty's shoulder, but she phased and he practically fell through her.

He was really shaking then, and not from fear.  I didn't have to be Logan to smell the rage coming off him.  "You will die, sinners!  My God has marked you as the demons you are, and you shall be cast out!  I will cast you out, demons!"

I don't know what happened.  It's one of those moments you look back and think, crap, what was I thinking.  Most of the other X-Men were outside, and I was closest, besides Kitty, to the bastard.

"Hey, sugar," I'd said.  "This demon has a little present for you."  Then I grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him hard on the lips.  When I let go, he dropped to the ground, unconscious.  _Not dead._  I didn't want to kill him.  I just wanted to shut him up.  He had immediately started screaming in my head about my evil, my eminent demise, et cetera.  I'd pushed him to the back of my mind, until his screams were little more than whispers.  

Then I'd looked around to see my fellow X-Men looking at me in horror.  Even Logan, his jaw dropped open, just like in the cartoons.

No one spoke on the way back to New York.  I've never heard the Blackbird so quiet.  Outside I stayed calm, but inside I was smacking myself in the forehead.  Stupid Rogue.  What the hell did you do that for?  

Cyke had pulled me aside the second we touched down.  Knew that was coming.  The scowl on his face said 'Major butt chewing, right this way!'  

"Rogue, what the hell was that?"

"At least wait until we're out of earshot, Cyclops.  Does everyone have to hear you rip me a new one?"

Scott had stood, his back to me, shoulders tense, and I realized it had been a long time since I'd seen him this angry.  "Forget it, Rogue.  We'll talk about this tomorrow."  And he'd walked away.  Just left me standing there in the hangar.  That was when I knew I was in serious trouble.  It would have been better to get yelled at.  Now I was going to be _punished_.

So now I'm hiding out in my room like a child knowing that daddy will be home soon and mama is going to tell him what I've done.

Knock on the door.  Shit.  I'm not wearing my gloves and I don't care.  I open the door.

Only Logan.  "You here to take me to the gallows?" Iask.

He shakes his head.  Calm, leaning against the doorway like nothing's wrong.  Damn him.  "No, just thinkin' you and I should talk."  He saunters in, pure testosterone in his jeans.  God I hate that.  Why does he have to be so _manly._  He sits himself in his favorite spot, the comfy armchair I swiped from the rec room when they updated all the furniture.

I sit down on the edge of the bed.  I'm tense and too tired to fake relaxed in front of him.  "So, let's hear it."

He leans back in the chair, mouth almost smiling.  "When are you gonna stop acting like a spoiled little brat?"

Now it's my jaw dropped open.  "What?" 

He leans forward a little.  "You heard me.  Spoiled.  Little.  Brat.  For a month now, you've moped around this house, either complaining or throwing little baby fits about nothing.  And I'm not even going to go into the stunt you pulled yesterday."

"I am not a spoiled brat!"

"Of course not," he says, sarcasm dripping in his words.  "You're a mature, responsible adult, aren't you?  Well, you're not acting like it.  So things aren't going well with Jean.  Life sucks, especially for mutants.  So take it like a grown-up."

"I don't want to take it like a grown-up!"  Had I said that out loud?  Damn.  Might as well not stop now.  "I'm sick of dealing with this!  I don't want to be the girl with the 'skin condition'!  I want to be normal!"  Tears pouring down my face.  Damnit, I swore this man would never see me cry again.  I lower my head and refuse to look at him, trying to sweep the tears off with my arm.  

It doesn't work.  Logan sits down next to me and pulls me against his chest, and I cry, my ungloved hands tucked up against my chest so I won't hurt him.

"Hey, kid," he says, his voice low and rough, "you don't really want to be normal."

"Oh, yeah?" I snort out.  "How would you know?"

"If you were normal, you'd have stayed in Arkansas, or wherever you came from, never graduated from high school, married one of your cousins, and had fourteen children.  You'd live in a trailer with a pile of broken down cars in your yard.  Now would you still rather be normal?"

I can't help but smile.  "I'm from Mississippi, you ass.  We marry our _second_ cousins there."

"Better than your fathers, I guess."  He gets serious.  "Your mutation has opened a lot of doors for you."

"It's closed some too," I add, frowning.

"Just like every big obstacle in life.  What makes us strong is the way we choose to deal with them.  You could, of course, continue to mope around the mansion with that pissed off look on your face…"

I sit back and glare at him.

"Yeah, that's the one.  Or you could learn to accept it and start living."

"You've never been one to accept anything," I shoot out at him.

"I've come to terms with plenty."  He gives me a sideways grin.  "I just usually put up a big fight before I do.  Like someone else I know."

I smile at that.  I wish I were more like him, so confident.  "I'm not sure how to deal with it," I admit.

He shrugs.  "Just start accepting it as fact.  There are ways for you to do the things you want."  He skirts the obvious; I know there's no way Wolverine is going to have a sex talk with me. "Maybe you should think more about what you want to do.  There's always school…"

"Thanks, _Dad_, but I don't know if college is for me."

"How would you know unless you tried?"

He's so rational.  I hate rational.  "I'll think about it."

He pats my shoulder.  "That's my girl."  He stands and walks to the door.  "And the kissing thing?  You might want to dispense with that move."

I look at him innocently.  "What, you didn't like that?"

He shudders.  "One of the coldest things I've ever seen, kid.  And I've seen a lot."  He pauses, half out the door.  "There's ways around everything, darlin'.  Half the fun is discovering those ways.  I think you know what I mean."  He shuts the door.

Okay, now I'm a little creeped.  Did Logan just hit on me?  

_Nah_.

But I can't help but grin.  Grin and take his advice to heart.  Crap, does this mean I'm growing up?  And ways around things?  I suppose something is better than nothing.  

I wonder where that cute new guy Storm brought back is hiding… the one with the killer Louisiana drawl…


End file.
